There was no glory in this. I hadn't asked for this crap. Trouble had come to me, in big dark swarms. The good and the just, they were like gold dust in this city. I had no illusions. I was not one of them. I was no hero.
- Max Payne

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay,
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

The disillusionment has truly been a difficult pill.
That you was anything menacing is a difficult sell.
In a whistle-and-bellorama, black mollies to dress up like piranha.
It's not even compelling melodrama.
It's a comedy, somebody wanna shop you as a saga.
I'm very voluntarily persona non grata.
- Dorks (Aesop Rock)

A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he's worth something. And if I know for sure that I'm a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?
- Writer (Stalker 1979)